United Nations Development Programme
Background
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP works with countries to build their own solutions to global and national development challenges and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. UNDP helps developing countries attract and use aid effectively and encourages the protection of human rights and the empowerment of women in all its activities. UNDP chairs the UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Areas of Focus
UNDP’s role is to contribute strategically and catalytically to growing national ability to promote equality and capability of all citizens. All UNDP program personnel, working in every focus area, are obliged to mainstream GBV considerations into their work because it has major implications for the successful attainment of the MDGs, and is a component of the fight against gender discrimination, an endeavor which cuts across all UNDP activity. UNDP focuses on all types of violence against women, including vulnerabilities arising out of trafficking in women and children, HIV/AIDS, disaster, conflict and post-conflict situations.
In Viet Nam in 2016, UN Women supports Legal Aid Department of Ministry of Justice to build a legal aid system sensitive to the needs of VAW survivors. This includes 1) technical assistance to legal drafters of the amended Legal Aid Law and to develop joint UN recommendations together with UNDP, UNICEF, UNODC, UNAIDS, highlighting gaps with international normative frameworks; and 2) support to develop a guideline for legal aid providers, reflecting the legislative changes of the criminal laws in 2015 and promoting gender-sensitive and survivor-centred response based on international standards. Materials developed through the support to Judicial Academy and UNODC's handbook for legal aid providers on domestic violence cases will be utilized for this purpose.